Ṣafwā

Overview

Ṣafwā is one of the settlements of the al-Qaṭīf oasis on the al-Khaṭṭ coast, in the palm ground watered by the springs behind the shore.

The name

The name is written صفوى and vowelled Ṣafwā; it is also met written صفوة. The form stands on the root ṣ-f-w, which Ibn Manẓūr enters twice over. On one side is *ṣafāʾ*, clearness and purity, and water described as *ṣāfī*. On the other is *al-ṣafā*, *al-ṣafwāʾ* and *al-ṣafwān* — the hard smooth rock with no earth or clay mixed into it, the bare stone. Both are live in place-naming, and either would suit ground of this kind: a spring is named for its clear water, an outcrop for its bare stone. The lexicon accounts for the form; it does not say which sense named this village, and this page does not choose for it.

In the sources

The classical works this reference cites — Yāqūt, Ibn Manẓūr, Ibn Ḥazm, al-Qalqashandī, al-Hamdānī and Ibn Khaldūn — do not name Ṣafwā. They describe this coast, and they describe it well: Yāqūt enters it as al-Khaṭṭ, the seaboard of al-Baḥrayn, and names al-Qaṭīf and the harbours along it. Ibn Manẓūr explains the word; he does not mention the village. The page therefore records the name, how it is written and vowelled, and the country it stands in. It does not record a history, and nothing here should be read as one.